The success with the family boosted Kalyan’s hope. This prompted Kalyan to start Proto Village. After buying the land, Kalyan invited the villagers to join him in building the village. Ten families from the Tekulodu village volunteered to be part of this new village. All the families will have an equal right to the village as guardians.

Setting up the village

Water Ponds

Just by volunteering, no one can become a villager in Proto. Everyone in the village should do ‘shrama daan.’ Since the village is located in the second driest district in India, the first thing Kalyan and the villagers did was to dig ponds around the land so that when it rains the water gets collected which in turn helps to raise the underground water table. Right now the Proto Village draws water from a depth of 140 feet via a bore well. When they started in 2014, the bore well depth was 240 feet.

Building homes

You will be surprised to know that Proto Village did not buy any cement but produced their own using limestone and kiln rotated by an ox. All the buildings in the village are built by sourcing the locally available materials. Two homes are built using mud, bamboo, rocks and other naturally available materials.

Electricity generation

All the energy needs in the Proto Village are sustained through solar power and wind power mill. A friend of Kalyan helped them in installing the wind turbine before training the villagers how to operate and maintain a wind turbine.

Organic Farming

Kalyan basically bought a barren piece of land which lacked proper topsoil essential for farming. It took them three years to prepare the land, and now it is ready for agriculture. They have planted several saplings around the village to increase the green cover. Also, they have started growing their own organic food in the village.

Now they are experimenting with a concept called “One Acre”. Through this experiment, they want to come up with a model of organic farming where different types of vegetables are grown which can sustain food needs for the farmer and also generate income. The excess vegetables are sold in the city.

Sustainable businesses

Proto Village houses a Rural Economic Zone(REZ). The village has a unit of soap making and cold pressed oil units. For making soaps, the heat is generated using the biogas plant installed in the village. All the vegetable waste and human waste is utilised to make the biogas. They sell the soaps to the visitors and to others in the nearby cities. Other village women are also trained in soap making. For cold pressed oil they use peanuts from their farm and also they procure from other village farmers.

Mayabazar

This name may sound weird to you when you realise that ‘Mayabazar’ is the place where the village kids study.

Kalyan doesn’t want to name it as a school, so he chose the name ‘Mayabazar’ where students learn everything on their own using the internet and hands-on experience using a ‘makerspace’ which has all the tools required to execute an idea. Teachers teach only Telugu and Hindi and the rest of the subjects are self-learnt by the students.

Spreading the best practices

Kalyan says, “If anyone wants to understand or replicate our model they are welcome to our village to know more about our best practices. We won’t charge them a penny. We want to be a support system for people who want to replicate our work in their villages.”

Want to visit Proto Village? Write to Kalyan at  info@protovillage.org or call them at 9741746478